


Replica

by justsleepwalkin



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-30
Updated: 2011-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-28 12:04:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsleepwalkin/pseuds/justsleepwalkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Smith doesn't want to be the Doctor, but sometimes he has to try as hard as he can to fit that role.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Replica

**Author's Note:**

> Whoa, first time posting... we'll see how this goes.

He follows the places where he can see the light in the sky. It’s rare these days. These days, he has to climb to the highest building in the city, yet even the zeppelins still manage to block out most of his view. He dreams of other worlds that another-him has been to, worlds that he only has memories of. He’s lost so much of the mind of the Doctor, so much of Donna. He’s John Smith now, and he doesn’t know who he is at all.

“Why not let me die, hm?” he says aloud. He’s perched on the edge of the building, staring out into darkness. Day or night, he doesn’t know what it is. He can’t feel time, and even after all of it that has passed, he still feels sickened by the loss. “You’ve taken away everyone else. Everything. Why not let me go?”

He hears the sound of footfalls along the rooftop, but no words travel back to him as the other moves closer.

Irritated, John’s gaze snaps behind him to stare at the bleak form of the Master. He sneers, “I’m not him, you know! Stop _clinging_ to me like I am! I’m not the Doctor, and I never will be!”

“Yes,” the Master drawls in reply, “you’re much too wrong to be him.”

“I was supposed to die with her!” John continues. He staggers to his feet, with enough grace that he doesn’t topple over the side. It wouldn’t kill him, anyway. Falling, even from this height, would only serve to mutilate his body, but death? No, the Master holds that out of his reach, constantly. “This wasn’t supposed to happen!”

“And why would I allow your plans for a simple, domestic life to go smoothly?” The Master stops several feet away from John. His backdrop is a dark sky filled with zeppelins. If they focus very carefully, they would be able to see small prickles of light – not stars, but _sunlight_. It is daylight on Earth. The Master has shaped this planet into the Utopia he remembers from the other universe. The screams of the human race are so similar to those from Malcassairo. “If I cannot ruin the Doctor’s life, then _you_ will just _have_ to do.” There’s a lie in those words. They both know it.

“What if I find a way to get you back?!” John yells, shaking in place.

“You can’t. If you could, you would have done it when the first hemisphere of your precious planet sank beneath my handiwork.” He smirks at his word choice. “Besides, what could you _possibly_ accomplish that I couldn’t? You’re not even a real Time Lord! You’re just… a walking _replica_!”

“Shut up.” John’s gaze jerks away, staring off towards the well-walked rooftop. He’s here daily. It’s the only place he feels he has a bit of freedom nowadays – or it was until the Master recently discovered him upon it. He can never hide for long, can he? It’s always like this. _Games_. John wonders what it was like on Gallifrey with Koschei and Ushas, but all he can remember is those names, and red grass. Everything else has crumbled beneath human weaknesses.

He knows this planet and this universe. He spent five years of his life with the Tyler family and Torchwood. It was… good. He could do the domestic thing. It was alright. Then one day Torchwood finds debris from the rift. Connected to it, a tiny ring with Gallifreyan writing that John doesn’t see until it’s too late. Another five years later and that good life of John’s is gone without a trace.

Because _of course_ with that ring came the Master, and only for a few short moments could John be happy. Foolish moments where he allowed himself to bask in the Master’s presence. Then it was quickly shattered, because John Smith was no Time Lord, and he was certainly no Doctor, and anything he and the Master could’ve had became dust when the Time Lord stared at him with disgust.

He was only a replica. He wasn’t even allowed the familiar thrum in his mind of another Time Lord – they were _both_ deprived of that.

Bit by bit the Master took control. They were able to corner and stop him, but he continued, fighting back harder after every instance, growing stronger while John was weakening. After the first three years was when each of the Tylers were killed before him, separately, in the worst of ways.

 _Rose_. Oh Rose.

When her death finally came, he waited for the Master to finish him off as well, but _no_. No, he only furthers John’s torment by keeping him _alive_. Looping his lifespan, then taking ownership of it. John was not allowed to die unless the Master let him.

This was different than the Year. This wasn’t about taking over the universe as his own, this was _personal_. It was about injuring the one person who _dared_ to be a mirror of the Doctor; a mess left strewn in the open, only to be seen by the Doctor himself if he, for whatever reason, crossed back to this world.

John almost wishes he would. If anyone could stop the Master, it was the Doctor. They were counterparts, tugging at one another – black and white, wins and losses. They could be in sync with one another, a perfect pair, but instead perfect enemies. John was none of this. He tried! But that’s all it was: trying, with no success.

He needed the Doctor to be here just as much as the Master did.

“I found something today,” the Master says, strangely serious. When John makes no response, when he doesn’t even bother to _look_ , the Master sighs, then he reaches into a pocket and pulls out a large clump of coral. It twists in different directions, branches reaching out to the solemn world. Yet there is the faintest light to its pores. “Interesting. Unlikely it fell through the rift. The Doctor isn’t so careless to let any of his TARDIS fall into it.”

At the mention of ‘Doctor’ and ‘TARDIS’ John’s eyes finally make their way back to stare at the Master. He catches sight of the coral, and his breath leaves him. “That’s…”

“Recognize it, John?”

“…No, I –” He can’t lie. It had been possible, years ago. He couldn’t pull off dispassion like the Doctor could, but he could manage something close once and awhile. “That… was a gift,” he says at last. “I thought it was gone, though. With the destruction of Torchwood.”

“Growing a TARDIS in Torchwood.” The Master curls his lips back. “Not something the Doctor would approve of.”

“I don’t need his approval of anything!”

“Ah, yes, that’s right. You’re such an individual.” The Master tsks. “How human of you.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, I _am human_.”

The Master’s reply is cold, “I never forget.”

John falls silent. He feels more exposed than he should be. It’s happened before, of course. A year ago he begged the Master to show him Gallifrey, to show him the past, to show him _anything_ of the life-not-his. No matter how much he kept a journal and wrote all he could about them, those memories were slipping from his fingers and leaving him to become someone he didn’t like.

He’s never been more open since that day.

The Master refused him. He would ‘not share minds with a replica.’

He clutches the coral tightly. “This TARDIS is slowly developing a heart. What will she become? Child born from that of the Doctor’s ship. Raised in such a dark world, by _the Master of All_. Ohh… I’d imagine she’d be beautiful. What would you do with a TARDIS, John?”

John’s fingers wrap in towards his palms. He’s opted for silence again.

“No wishes? No dreams?” The Master shrugs. “Well, if you don’t want it, that’s fine.” He slides the coral back into his pocket and turns to walk away.

“…Wait!” A second after he speaks, John curses.

“Something to say?”

“…no. Just. Stop messing with me, Master. Please. No more of this.”

The Master glances over his shoulder, a brow raised. “I want to know what you would do with a TARDIS.”

“What do you _think_? Leave, of course. There’s no question in it. It’s the only thing _for_ me to do.”

The coral is back out in view, cradled gently between the Master’s hands. He whispers, voice enticing, “Come on, John. _Take it_ from me. Take your _freedom_.”

There’s such honesty in the Master’s expression that John doesn’t know what to do. This is the _Master_. Everything he does in regards to John is a trick. Everything is done only to hurt. He stares at the soft glowing coral with desire. His single heart desperately wishes he could hear the hum that he knows is trying to find its voice. There’s a piece of a _TARDIS_ here, again. Something he thought was forever lost, dead amongst rubble of a fallen corporation. He knows exactly how to speed her growth, exactly how he could escape this planet and finally see the stars once more.

But he’s getting his hopes up. He’s dreaming of a life that cannot exist. His essence is chained to the Master, forever trapped, forever linked.

His hopes sink just as quickly as they stirred.

“No? You won’t even try?” the Master asks.

“I’m not playing your games, Master.”

“That’s a real shame.”

The Master looks up into the darkness that he has created. The human race still tries to survive as best it can in the disease he cast upon it. He allows them to. They all suffer; they all beg. If they step over the line then the Master ends them – literally – with a swift thought. This planet lives and breathes _the Master_.

John returns to sitting along the edge of the rooftop, one leg pulled to his chest, the other hanging loosely over the side. The Master wants to drag him back to his feet and scream in his face; he wants to demand why the other couldn’t just choose freedom. He wants to throw him over the edge and let him finally just _die_ because he didn’t _run_ when he was given a chance.

It’s been five years on this useless planet – the world the Doctor loved more than anything. Stuck in a universe with a fake, clawing at the fabric of time to try and break down the walls and let him back on the side he _belonged_. Five years and the Doctor was supposed to simply _know_ he was alive and tear down those walls to put an end to his reign and fix his human mirror.

Five years.

And _nothing_.

The Master grips the coral tightly, as if that would shut up the soft whisper of the growing TARDIS that was trying to bring comfort to the only Time Lord in this universe. He didn’t _need_ such a child. He stuffs the piece back into the pocket, furiously staring at John Smith’s back, then stalking away before he put an end to the pathetic human.

John Smith was supposed to fight. He was supposed to choose freedom and find a way to bring the Doctor here. He was supposed to _leave_ so the Master would no longer have to see that _face_.

The Master would have given it to him. Five years of waiting, and he would have given a replica anything, if only for the real thing.


End file.
